Employment increased in August from one year ago

According to Statistics Finland’s Labour
Force Survey, the number of employed people was 64,000 higher in
August 2018 than one year ago. The number of unemployed persons was
186,000, which was 16,000 lower than one year ago. The trend of the
unemployment rate was 7.5 per cent and the trend of the employment
rate 71.8 per cent.

Unemployment and employment vary quite considerably by month and
the change from the observation of the previous month mainly
describes the seasonal aspect rather than the trend in development.
Thus, the latest statistical data are compared to the corresponding
period of the year before. By contrast, the figures of the trend
series that are adjusted for seasonal and random variation are
mutually comparable and phenomena associated with long-term
development and cyclical changes are thus more easily observable
from the trend of the time series.

The trend usually changes somewhat when the data of the
following month are included in the time series. This preliminary
nature of trend figures should be taken into account when making
conclusions. The figures reported in this release are not
adjusted for seasonal variation unless separately
mentioned that they concern the trend. You can read more about the
trend here .

In August 2018, the number of employed persons
was 2,566,000 (margin of error ±33,000), which was 64,000 higher
than a year earlier. There were 35,000 more employed men and 29,000
more employed women than in August 2017.

In August 2018, the employment rate , that is,
the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood
at 72.6 per cent, having been 70.5 per cent one year earlier. From
August last year, men’s employment rate rose by 2.4
percentage points to 74.4 per cent and women’s by 1.8
percentage points to 70.8 per cent. Adjusted for seasonal and
random variation, the trend of the employment rate was 71.8 per
cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there
were 186,000 unemployed in August 2018 (margin of
error ±17,000), i.e. 16,000 fewer than one year earlier. The number
of unemployed men was 90,000 and that of women 96,000.

At 6.8 per cent, the unemployment rate was 0.7
percentage points lower in August than one year earlier. The
unemployment rate of men decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 6.3
per cent, and that of women by 0.8 percentage points to 7.3 per
cent. The trend of the unemployment rate was 7.5 per cent.

In August, there were a total of 618,000 young people
aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 278,000 were employed and 44,000
unemployed. The number of young people in the active population,
i.e. the employed and unemployed in total, was 322,000. In August,
the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the
proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 13.6
per cent, which was 0.8 percentage points lower than one year
previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people
was 17.3 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to
24 among the population in the same age group was 7.1 per cent.

There were 1,371,000 persons in the inactive
population in August 2018, which was 41,000 fewer than one
year earlier. Of the inactive population, 118,000 persons were in
disguised unemployment , which
was 22,000 fewer than in August 2017.

Unrounded figures are used in the
Change column.
The data comply with the ILO/EU definition.

Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic
Affairs and Employment

At the end of August 2018, there were altogether 243,000 persons
registered in accordance with the Employment Office Regulations as
unemployed job seekers at the employment and economic
development offices . The number of unemployed job seekers
was 45,000 lower than in August last year.

Unemployment fell in August from the corresponding period in
2017 in the areas of all Employment and Economic Development
Centres; most in Pirkanmaa (-25%), Ostrobothnia (-23%), South
Ostrobothnia (-21%), North Ostrobothnia (-18%), North Savo (-18%)
and Satakunta (-18%). At the end of August, the number of fully
laid off persons registered at the employment and economic
development offices was 7,000, which was 3,000 fewer than twelve
months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the
activation rate totalled 119,000 at the end of August, which was
6,000 more than in August of the year before. Altogether, 4.3 per
cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy
services.

There were 31,000 unemployed job seekers aged under 25
registered at the employment and economic development offices.
Their number was 5,000 lower than in last year's August. During
this August, 59,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment
and economic development offices, which was 8,000 more than in the
previous year's August.

Changes 2017/08–2018/08 according to the
Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs
and Employment